secure data erasing

[Jim Kavitsky]

Hi, Alvin. Are you going to be retaining possession of the disks, or do
they have to go off site? I'm also curious as to why software erasure is
not an option. Is it a matter of being too labor intensive for the
number of devices that you have? The DoD has published data erasure
standards for classified hard drives that specify bit patterns and
number of passes required to eliminate residual data traces. Several of
the software vendors out there claim to be DoD compliant, including this
one:

http://www.eraseyourharddrive.com

You can also attach the drives to a unix box and write a C program to
write across the entire device with the specified bit patterns for the
required number of passes.

The question boils down to how valuable is the information on the
drives? Are you looking for an external degausser only because it will
be faster for bulk erasure? If you are really concerned about the
information on the drives, I would use a software package to erase it in
addition to whatever other technique you decide upon.

I also have my doubts about bulk electromagnetic erasers being effective
through the HDA enclosure of a drive. When I worked for General Dynamics
a long time ago, we had to erase failed drives containing classified
information before they could be allowed to be returned to the vendor,
as our support contract required. We had the option of purchasing the
broken drives, or degaussing them. Degaussing them involved opening the
HDA's, and running what amounted to a $1700 bar magnet over the surface
of each platter for three revolutions. This also effectively destroyed
those HDA's as far as future usability goes.

Please let us know what option you finally select, and what factors
affected your decision.

-jimk

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org] On
Behalf Of Alvin Oga
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 9:41 PM
To: baylisa at baylisa.org
Subject: secure data erasing


hi ya baylisa-erz

- to beat a dead horse ( secure data erasure ) some more ...

- i'm looking to see if anybody here has a degausser floating around

	- we'll pay you for the rental time on those $3K or more puppies

- erasing disks with freeware/proprietory commercial software is 
  NOT an option

- sledge hammer will be an option on a couple of the disks
  but not the other disks .. ( it'd be a "waste of disk" )

- trick question ..
	- how good are the degaussers .. can the magnetic waves get
	thru the metal (typically aluminum ) that forms the disk 
 	to randomly screw up the "itty-bitty magnets" on the platters

	if the case is steel .. it'd be a real good trick to erase
	the platters ..

c ya
alvin

x> http://www.ibas.com/data-erasure/degausser
x> http://www.degausser.info/
x> http://www.datadev.com/
x> http://www.periphman.com/gsa.shtml
x>
x> $ 3100
x> http://www.athana.com/ddequip/v91mHD.htm
x> http://www.degausser.us/degaussers/91mhd.htm ( same as above )
x> http://www.garsonindustries.com/degauss/91mhd.htm ( same as above)
x> http://asiastor.com/verity_v91mhd.htm ( same as above )
x>
x> $ 860 - sorta worthless since the disk is opened already
x>
http://www.datalinksales.com/cgi-bin/shop/datstore.cgi?user_action=detai
l&catalogno=V85